£h8 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 
The effects will be first and most especially obvious at 
the point of injury, and at the growing points, where the 
life-functions happen to be going on most vigorously at 
the time. Thus, if the young shoots and young leaves 
are in full activity at the time when root-mischief occurs, 
they will the soonest show the effect of cutting off sup- 
plies—they will wither and droop. If the process is slow 
and gradual, the leaves will become emptied of their 
contents, their chlorophyll will change color, the plant 
will assume a sickly yellow look very characteristic to 
the practiced eye. The older portions of the plant, with 
their reserve stores of water and food, may not immedi- 
ately suffer; and it is from them that the materials 
requisite for any effort at repair and reorganization must, 
if it be possible, be made. Thus a plant may grow for 
some time after injury, and then suddenly flag because 
its reserve supplies are at length exhausted. It follows 
from this that death from starvation as a consequence 
of root-mischief is not generally a sudden, but more often 
a gradual process, the length of time of course varying 
according to the nature of the mischief, and specially 
according to the nature and condition of the plant. 
Death beginning at the Leaf.—This may be appre- 
ciated from what has been before said as to the functions 
of the leaf. The leaf is an organ of nutrition, of respira- 
tion, and transpiration; if its functions are sufficiently in- 
terfered with, death will result, either from inanition or 
from suffocation, or from both combined. The power of 
resistance that a leaf has may be inferred from its 
structure. A thick, fleshy leaf, with layer after layer of 
chlorophyll-containing cells, with abundance of pores 
and a thick skin, is obviously better able to resist in- 
jurious agencies than a thin leaf whose delicate texture 
speedily withers and falls a prey to adverse circum- 
stances. 
